I managed to get it working in MacOS Sierra, but am running into stability problems. Have you modified the Akitio box for more stable power supply? For me it freezes and crashes because of lack of power.
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Radeon RX 470/480 eGPU in macOS AKiTiO Thunder2
- Thread starter theitsage
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I managed to get it working in MacOS Sierra, but am running into stability problems. Have you modified the Akitio box for more stable power supply? For me it freezes and crashes because of lack of power.
Especially considering rx480 pcie slot power issues. one might fry both akitio box and the card. ask MVC, he fried few boxes and cards.
How exactly? Because I also know that there have been multiple success stories on modifying the max current to 75W. I do not see how wiring the PCIe slot to the 12v rail on the PSU can cause any trouble, unless of course one is not careful and shorts everything in the process or wires it up incorrectly.
I've been using the AKiTiO box with both a 500W ATX PSU and a Dell DA-2 220W power brick. The good news is I have not fried anything. The bad news is the RX 480 behaves the exact same way inside my Mac Pro tower as well as the AKiTiO box with both power supplies.
As someone has mentioned in the RX 470 thread, the crashing issue in OpenGL may very well be power draw related issue with the RX 480 rather than macOS drivers. I will try using a 6-pin to 6-pin Y connector to supply the RX 480 with power from both mini 6-pins on the Mac Pro tower. Hopefully that will give us more insights to what's going on with these RX 480s.
As someone has mentioned in the RX 470 thread, the crashing issue in OpenGL may very well be power draw related issue with the RX 480 rather than macOS drivers. I will try using a 6-pin to 6-pin Y connector to supply the RX 480 with power from both mini 6-pins on the Mac Pro tower. Hopefully that will give us more insights to what's going on with these RX 480s.
I don't doubt your experience. My observation of the RX 480 has been different than most GPUs though. In Windows, prior to Crimson driver hot fix, Unigine Valley would crash my Mac Pro tower.
It is risky.
I fried a Thundertek/PX too: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/building-external-gpus-on-mac-egpu.1893792/page-5#post-22940819
Best way is removing the Akitio board and using a powered riser cable: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/building-external-gpus-on-mac-egpu.1893792/#post-21548554
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I got my plug and play RX460 eGPU working in my Skylake laptop.
But I cannot get it to work on Mac, either with Sierra or Windows 10:
- Sierra: Akitio detected, RX460 not detected.
- Win10: screen black immediately on boot, even after manually installing the Crimson driver.
But I cannot get it to work on Mac, either with Sierra or Windows 10:
- Sierra: Akitio detected, RX460 not detected.
- Win10: screen black immediately on boot, even after manually installing the Crimson driver.
I found out the X3000 and X4000 kexts conflict, so it's not possible to have both loaded at the same time.
Even if you could, how would you choose? gfxCardStatus only deals with 1 discrete card.
So I had to bite the bullet and move away the internal discrete gfx kexts.
Now I get a like a big improvement over the 2011 graphics. But I still cannot choose 4K@60Hz.
But the Heaven benchmark seriously stalls sometimes. This works well under TB2 but here it's TB1.
I will try disconnecting my dock next time. Maybe it is Time Machine.
Even if you could, how would you choose? gfxCardStatus only deals with 1 discrete card.
So I had to bite the bullet and move away the internal discrete gfx kexts.
Now I get a like a big improvement over the 2011 graphics. But I still cannot choose 4K@60Hz.
But the Heaven benchmark seriously stalls sometimes. This works well under TB2 but here it's TB1.
I will try disconnecting my dock next time. Maybe it is Time Machine.
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After trying different custom coolers for the RX 480 board, I've decided to stick with the stock cooler and housing. In order for the whole card to fit, I cut off the front part of the inner enclosure.
Honestly it doesn't look bad exposing the GPU this way. This eGPU setup now uses a Sapphire RX 470 with a brushed aluminum front and housing similar to RX 480 reference cooler.
Honestly it doesn't look bad exposing the GPU this way. This eGPU setup now uses a Sapphire RX 470 with a brushed aluminum front and housing similar to RX 480 reference cooler.
What model power supply did you use? Also, were there any additional hardware mods needed? lou
I've used both a full size ATX 500W PSU and a Dell DA-2 220W power prick. For this RX 470, the DA-2 is more than enough. I cut a barrel plug from an old external hard drive and soldered one end to the PSU. Same thing was done with the 6-pin power cable. This photo shows all the components of this ePGU build.
Is this so you do not have to have 2 power cables? Barrel plug for the AKitio and 6 pin for the Radeon. Correct?
Would I need a higher wattage power supply for the Radeon RX 480?
ALSO - did you have to do any software MODs in Sierra or Windows 10? Looking to do the same set-up for my son.
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I'd recommend waiting for the AKiTiO Node. It's a full eGPU enclosure with built-in PSU.
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I'm now waiting for Apple to update MacOS to support the new 10 series cards, because I was thinking you max out the new MBP except the gpu part and you get an egpu with thunderbolt 3 and put like a gtx 1070or 1080 in there.
You need Nvidia to release Web Drivers for Pascal GPUs. Apple does not provide drivers for GPUs that were not part of its Mac lineup.